I wrote this out from the July 2014 Safari Times. I think old Craig Boddington nailed it. Enjoy!
PASSION FOR A LIFETIME
By Craig Boddington
Safari Times July 2014
There were so many wonderful years when I was the �new kid� on the gunwriters� block. Those days are over. I don�t dwell on it, but tomorrows no longer exceed yesterdays. Hey, life is good. I have noticed that hills and mountains are becoming higher and steeper, but I can still hike and climb and (usually) shoot straight. But the signs are there. I can�t run like I used to, and dropping into the sitting position isn�t quite as simple as it once was.
Actually, we�re fortunate. Well, maybe we�re not. Professional athletes get paid the absurd sums; we pay to pursue our sport. But let�s look at it another way. In serious contact sports few athletes compete past their 30s� and there are almost no �popular� sports that people into their 50s can compete seriously. As we know too well, hunting is not a �popular sport,� at least in some areas. It is certainly not a spectator sport. Actually, whether it�s properly defined as a sport, or better understood as a passion, lifestyle or innate necessity, hunting has one great advantage: There is no age limit!
Simply put, you may hunt as long as you can, and this is very different among individuals. Also, there�s hunting and then there�s hunting. Over the decades at our Convention I�ve had so many people tell me they were saving Africa until later� because it was �easier�. Yeah, some of it is, but I always wonder if those people are thinking about tracking Lord Derby eland or buffalo, or hunting bongo in Africa�s great forests.
It is much the same with all the other continents, including our own. Some hunts are generally easy; others are generally more difficult. Hunting luck being as it is, sometimes the easy ones are hard, and vice versa. If I had a perfect plan, I�d hunt North America first as the most difficult continent. Then Asia, and then all the rest. But that plan doesn�t work for many of us; we hunt as we can, we hunt with our friends, and there are progressions in what and where we wish to hunt. And at some point each and all of us will run out of time.
The thing is: The variance is great, so we have no idea when that might occur. All of us have lost friends much too young; and seen older people give up when, just perhaps, they didn�t really have to. Obviously, one must have something to live for, and I submit that hunting is not only an atavistic and natural part of humanity� but a part that imposes no mandatory retirement.
I was at my booth at our convention this year when a man approached somewhat shyly and asked if I could autograph a book for his dad. Well, that�s a trigger; this guy was at least my age, probably older, and he still had a dad. I wish I did! (Especially my dad!) So we talked for a bit, and he told me that his dad had tagged three whitetail bucks all by himself during the recent season� and that the book was a gift for his dad�s 100th birthday, coming up quickly.
Uh, wow! He sent me a photo, and I wonder if I have a photo of America�s oldest living hunter? Clyde Roberts, God bless you, and may He give you many more seasons (and many more bucks)!
I didn�t think about this a great deal� it isn�t depressing, but it is mystical in that none of us know how much time remains (so best make use of what we have!); and, unfortunately and inconsistently, the passage of time affects all of us differently.
And so I wound up at Marcelo Sodiro�s camp in Argentina�s Santa Fe province with Harley Young, a friend from many conventions� and let�s just say an octogenarian. Hell, outfitters are starting to worry about what I am capable of doing! Harley is 20 years older and perfectly capable of doing a great many things in our hunting world. True, some of the toughest mountain hunting is behind him (and possibly behind me!), but there is still so much hunting that can be done� and Harley Young understands that.
He is booking hunts, mounting trophies and making plans when so many of his contemporaries are concerned about buying green bananas! And so are many of our SCI members in his age group. For the record, hunting with Marcelo Sodiro, Harley took a great red stag on his second day, and then sort of vacillated between axis deer and water buffalo. On his fourth day, I was with him when we penetrated a huge flooded marsh and, after an absurd stalk in knee-deep mud, he took an exceptional water buffalo. I was not with him on the last evening, when he finally took the axis deer he�d been looking for� but he obviously didn�t need my help. And that�s the point, isn�t it? We�re fortunate to have the passion we have, because it carries no mandatory retirement and no time limits. Thank God!
